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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28751967">The Mystery at the Silver Tern</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/oiuytrewq36/pseuds/oiuytrewq36'>oiuytrewq36</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Poirot - Agatha Christie, Queer as Folk (US)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Agatha Christie - Freeform, Alternate Universe - Historical, Crossover, Drama, M/M, Mystery, Romance, Slow Build, Slow Burn</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 03:54:07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>5,092</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28751967</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/oiuytrewq36/pseuds/oiuytrewq36</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>There was a low chuckle to my side.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>I turned to look and saw a tall, dark-haired man leaning against the side of the bar in a fashionably untidy tuxedo, a glass of scotch in one hand, looking me over with the darkest of piercing dark eyes. “There’s no greater human comedy than the institution of heterosexual marriage,” he said, in a drawling accented voice. </em>
</p><p><em>Oh, Christ.</em> </p><p>Did I ever think I’d be writing an Agatha Christie AU? Nope, but here ya go anyway.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Brian Kinney/Justin Taylor (Queer as Folk)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>32</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>this is SaKha’s fault</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>A free vacation on the French Riviera is not something many people would consider tiresome, I’ll admit. Still, despite all Lady Chanders’s assertions that some time by the sea was just what I needed, it was with great reluctance that I left my little Whitechapel flat with a note to the landlady that I’d be gone for a month, my paints and pencils packed safely in my bag.</p><p>The Silver Tern Hotel was a gilded jewelry box of a building, bustling with valets and concierges and all the other accoutrements of wealth and luxury. I was shown to my room by a fresh-faced employee probably no older than twenty, then left to my own devices to unpack my meager luggage and rest before supper.</p><p>I descended to the first floor of the hotel a little after six. Truthfully, I despise socializing, but it is what I was there for, after all, and Daphne had been such a friend to me in the past that I couldn’t bear to let her down.</p><p>“Justin, <em>darling</em>!” she said, when I arrived in the drawing room. “I’ll be honest, I wasn’t sure you were really coming. None of my friends believe you exist, you know.”</p><p>“I suppose I’ll have to allow you to show me off, then,” I said, and she beamed.</p><p>I spent the next three-quarters of an hour meeting socialites and actors and broody society poets, all in finery and jewels, my best cut-rate suit (also my only suit, as it happened) sticking out like a sore thumb. I was introduced enthusiastically to Evelyn Cartwright, director of a recently lauded West End production of <em>Black Coffee</em>, and an aggressively boring gentleman named either John or Peter who worked in finance or possibly law, something drab, anyway, and a short, charming Belgian detective with a balding egg-shaped head who proclaimed himself the finest private investigator of all time when I inquired after his occupation.</p><p>I excused myself in search of a drink after speaking for a while with a older pianist with some kind of vendetta against Bach that I didn’t particularly care about. Thank God for the British occupation with providing alcohol to anyone and everyone on social occasions. </p><p>Weaving my way through crowds of people, I slipped around a tall slim blonde woman kissing a red-haired man in the hallway and found my way to the source of the drinks. I began pouring myself a gin and tonic at the unmanned bar, but nearly dropped the bottle when I heard angry voices behind me. When I turned around, I saw a balding man in a badly tailored and expensive suit glaring at the woman I’d just passed on my way in.</p><p>“Right in front of everyone, Celeste?” he said, hands clenched into fists at his sides. “Do you have no shame?”</p><p>The woman tossed her head and laughed. “Why should I, when you take all of it for yourself?”</p><p>The man seethed, looking fit to explode with rage. Hoping to defuse whatever situation this was so I could get on with my drink, I coughed discreetly, and they both turned, noticed my presence, and left.</p><p>There was a low chuckle to my side.</p><p>I turned to look and saw a tall, dark-haired man leaning against the side of the bar in a fashionably untidy tuxedo, a glass of scotch in one hand, looking me over with the darkest of piercing dark eyes. “There’s no greater human comedy than the institution of heterosexual marriage,” he said, in a drawling accented voice. </p><p>Oh, Christ.</p><p>“Have you met the cast?” the American stranger said, still in that low, almost bored timbre.</p><p>I shook my head, and he smiled, not at all in a friendly manner. “The woman is Celeste Edison, heir to the Harridan family fortune-”</p><p>“Harridan- as in Harridan Watches?” I said.</p><p>He nodded. “And her husband, George. Dullest man on the planet, if you ask me.”</p><p>“Why’re they arguing?”</p><p>“Because everyone knows she’s been screwing his secretary, Conrad - that’s the ginger - for months. Mr. Edison won’t leave, because if he does he’ll lose access to the cash - pre-nuptial agreement, you know - so Mrs. Edison can be as brazen as she wants without worrying for shit.”</p><p>He watched me as he spoke, perhaps measuring my reaction to his language. He smiled faintly when I gave him nothing at all.</p><p>He turned, putting his back to the bar again. “So what brings you to everyone’s favorite little slice of European affluence?”</p><p>“I’m a friend of Lady Chanders,” I said. “The wealthy like to bring a bohemian or two on their vacations once in a while; they think it makes them exciting.”</p><p>He burst out laughing, setting his drink down on the bar. “An honest assessment if I’ve ever heard one.” He looked me over again, eyes raking slowly up my body. I forced down a shiver.</p><p>“So,” he said. “What are your plans for the rest of this fine evening?”</p><p>I ordered myself to look him in the eye, and to remember that I’d made too many mistakes that looked just like him before.</p><p>“Nothing much,” I said. “And I plan for it to stay that way.”</p><p>He chuckled. “As you wish, Mr.-”</p><p>“Taylor,” I said. “Justin Taylor.”</p><p>“I see,” he said, mouth in a strange half-smile. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Taylor.”</p><p>He dropped a lime wedge in my drink, picked up his own and loped away from the bar. I watched him go, cursing my better judgement.</p><p>Lady Chanders sidled up to me, martini in hand, a few minutes later. “Having fun?”</p><p>I shrugged. “By the way,” I said, “who’s the American?”</p><p>She followed my gaze and laughed. “I should have known you’d find him,” she said. I declined to react. “Brian Kinney, millionaire. Stays out of the society papers, for the most part, although everyone who’s anyone knows who he is. Bit of a rogue, and curses like a sailor-”</p><p>I nodded. “So I saw.”</p><p>“-but successful. Very successful.”</p><p>“He lives in London?”</p><p>“Alone, though with streams of beautiful men in and out the door, or so I’ve heard.” She looked at me, but I said nothing, simply glad to know that my initial assessment had been correct. </p><p>“What does he do?”</p><p>She waved one hand vaguely through the air. “Something that makes money. They say he has a private box in every theatre in the city.”</p><p>“Oh,” I said. She looked as if she wanted to question me further, so I hastily spent the valuable currency of gossip I’d recently acquired to hold her off.</p><p>“I saw the Edisons having it out a few minutes ago.”</p><p>Daphne sighed. “Sad to see a marriage break down, isn’t it?” she said, sounding not sad in the slightest.</p><p>“I’m amazed that he stays with her,” I said. “Even if it is for the money.”</p><p>“Not all of us can have the minimalist relationship with material goods that you do, darling,” she said, and kissed me on the cheek before darting off to greet yet another woman in a glittering gown.</p><p>I retired to my room the moment I finished my drink. My hands were itching to draw in a way I hadn’t felt in months, even before the slump that had inspired Daphne to drag me here.</p><p>I sat down at my desk and began sketching, adding splashes of watercolor and ink when the image began to take shape. It was only an hour, maybe two, before I held up the paper and decided I was satisfied with it: a perfect reproduction of the enigmatic Brian Kinney, rakish and dangerous, leaning against the bar in the downstairs of the Silver Tern. </p><p>As I signed the drawing and laid it carefully down to dry, a little voice in my head asked me if I knew what I was playing at.</p><p>I ignored it. So I’d found a temporary muse. What was the worst that could happen?</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>minimal true Christie references in this chapter - Poirot’s here for about ten words and there’s a few little Easter eggs as well. This will probably be a 40-60k story, in the vein of a real Christie novel, with 1+ murders and lots of red herrings. I have a plot mapped out, sort of, so it will have an ending at some point.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>My sleep was fitful and unsatisfying, and close to two in the morning I once again made the short journey to the hotel’s first floor in search of a tonic or perhaps a cup of cocoa. Shortly I found myself wandering the now-empty lower floor in fascination of the empty rooms that had so recently hosted a crowded genteel gathering of the upper classes, considering whether to use some of my newfound artistic energy on a sketch series of their vacant chairs and unlit fireplaces. </p><p>I rounded a corner into the main lobby of the hotel and came into view of the concierge desk. I was considering to ask the night man where I might find something to help me sleep when a voice behind me called my name.</p><p>Turning around, I spotted the self-confident private detective I’d met the previous evening in one of the jacquard armchairs near a lit fireplace. I struggled to recall his name - something French, at least a silent letter or two - as he smiled genially at me.</p><p>“Hercule Poirot,” he offered, pleasantly, when I failed at the task. “We met last night. You are the artist, no? Lady Chanders’s friend?”</p><p>I nodded. He smiled, broadly, a friendly charming smile. “Come, sit, sit,” he said. “Would you like a cigarette?”</p><p>I did, in fact, want a cigarette, so I went and sat across from him. He held out a slim silver case, and I took one from it, nodding my thanks as I did. He offered a light and I took that too, touching the tip of my cigarette to his golden metal lighter until it caught and then sitting back.</p><p>“It is not often that I find a companion in my sleeplessness,” he said. “My heart is bad, you see. It wakes me, I cannot sleep, and then I am thinking too much so I must get up and wander.”</p><p>I nodded once more. “I was thinking too much too. I think.”</p><p>He chuckled. “Artists, writers, poets, you all have this problem. In London everyone is an insomniac, or that is what I see, anyway.”</p><p>“You live in London?”</p><p>“Yes,” he said. “I like to stay in the most lively place I can, with the most comings and goings to watch over.”</p><p>“So do I,” I said. “I have a flat in Whitechapel.”</p><p>He nodded, smiling genially. “And how did you come to visit the Silver Tern?”</p><p>I shrugged. “Lady Chanders offered to pay my way; she thought it might help me out of an artist’s slump.”</p><p>“Of course,” said Poirot. “The British believe in the power of sea air to cure all, do they not?”</p><p>I could not suppress a small laugh. “More than is reasonable, if you ask me.”</p><p>He chuckled again, looking directly at me for the first time and studying me with very bright catlike green eyes. “I believe I may have seen one of your shows this past autumn, at the Clement? Exquisite charcoal sketches, if I remember correctly.”</p><p>I smiled. “Mine, yes. I’m surprised anyone here has heard of the Clement; it often seems the only people there are artists.”</p><p>“Ah, but those are the best galleries,” Poirot said, again with pleasant humor. “They lack the pretension that holds back the highest-class establishments from truly innovative curation.”</p><p>Quite genuinely surprised, I said, “My thoughts exactly, although I would never turn down a Central London gallery, so perhaps that makes me a hypocrite.”</p><p>Poirot smiled. “Most of us are hypocrites at some point, I think. It is the way of human nature.”</p><p>He paused a moment, looking into the fire, and then seemed to shake off the moment of introspection. I inquired after his other artistic interests, and soon enough we were deep in a discussion of the recent Rembrandt exhibition at the National Gallery. </p><p>“So,” Poirot said, when the topic had been thoroughly explored, “what do you plan for your next showing?”</p><p>I sighed and tapped off the ash from the stub of my cigarette into a tray on a side table. “Not much, if what I have to go on is any sign of what’s to come.”</p><p>He nodded sympathetically. “Well, the ideas will come, I am sure. This is the slump you mentioned?”</p><p>“Yes,” I said. “A few months now, since I painted anything I consider any good.” Excepting the new sketch of Mr. Kinney, that statement, but that was a small victory that I wanted to belong only to me.</p><p>“That must be difficult,” he said. “Being all alone all day, not being able to paint.”</p><p>He stopped a moment and looked at me again. “Do you have- someone, to help pass the time? A young lady?”</p><p>I will never know how he guessed it, since I am certain that my face did not depart from its practiced neutral mask. “Or,” he said, “a young man?”</p><p>I did my best not to jolt in my seat. Still smiling benignly, he put up one hand, seemingly to soothe me.</p><p>“It makes little difference to me,” he said. “<em>L’amour rend aveugle</em>, no? I do not judge those lucky enough to find love.”</p><p>“Some would say I should go to hell.”</p><p>He sighed. “Indeed. But I am Catholic, <em>mon cher</em>, and it is my own belief that God does not hate beings of His own creation.”</p><p>I looked at him. “Are you-”</p><p>Poirot smiled and shrugged. “No, no. Romance is not interesting to me, myself. But I am very happy to - how do you say? - live vicariously through the young and beautiful.”</p><p>I laughed. “You mean you play matchmaker?”</p><p>“With more than a few successes behind me,” he said, eyes twinkling.</p><p>I was just about to ask for further details when there was a great crash from the upstairs.</p><p>“<em>Mon Dieu</em>, what was that?” Poirot said, rising from his seat. Just as he finished speaking, a man’s voice began calling, “Help! Someone, please, send help!”</p><p>We looked at each other and ran upstairs, on the heels of the night concierge. We were met in the hallway by John-or-Peter, he of the law-or-finance career, who was pale-faced and panting.</p><p>“We must phone for the police,” he said. “Mrs. Edison is dead!”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Poirot is an ace/aro legend, that is all.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The hallway was filled with people, policemen, hotel staff, guests in night clothes. Poirot weaved expertly through the crowd, and I followed him, not knowing what else to do with myself.</p><p>“-my services,” Poirot was saying, speaking in rapid French to a tall man in a policeman’s uniform as I approached. “Does it appear to be a natural death?”</p><p>The policeman shook his head. “The doctor will not be here for a quarter of an hour. We do not know.”</p><p>Poirot nodded. “If you do not mind, I will make just the quick investigation, in case there is any evidence that may decay.” He looked over and noticed me. “Ah, Justin- this is Lieutenant Delacroix. If it is not objectionable, would you offer your drawing services to take record of the room if that is needed? The police here now do not have a camera, and-”</p><p>I nodded. “Of course.”</p><p>Poirot said something more in French to the lieutenant, so quick I did not catch any of it, but then Delacroix bent his head in agreement and Poirot gestured me through to Celeste Edison’s room.</p><p>The body was on the floor, covered by a white sheet, but it still jarred me. I must have made a sound as we passed between the two policemen standing silent sentry inside the room, for Poirot looked at me with concern and said, “If this is too uncomfortable-”</p><p>“It’s all right,” I said. Poirot nodded and pulled the sheet back. Mrs. Edison’s face looked frozen in an expression of pain and horror, and Poirot shook his head and muttered something under his breath. He laid the sheet back down.</p><p>“The doctor will confirm,” he said, “but she is very recently dead, I think.”</p><p>“Do you think the sound we heard-”</p><p>“The unfortunate Mrs. Edison falling to the floor, perhaps? It seems so. Her maid was in the adjoining room and ran in, and then alerted Mr. Thompson in the hallway, who called for help.”</p><p>I frowned. “What about her husband?”</p><p>Poirot shrugged. “He told the police that he and his wife had not shared a bed for some time. The concierge confirmed, they had made separate reservations.”</p><p>He turned and began to make some kind of survey of the room. The bedside table was first, and he studied carefully each of the few items on it. Unsure exactly what my role was meant to be here, I made a quick sketch of the table’s contents and their relative positions.</p><p>Poirot then moved on to the small fireplace and mantelpiece at the side of the room. The fire was unlit, two large blackened logs on the grate. He stooped and touched the ash, studied his fingertip, and withdrew a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his hand on it. “Anything strange?” I said.</p><p>“I do not know,” he said. “There is an odd feeling in this room, is there not?”</p><p>When I didn’t say anything back, he sighed. “Not just that a woman has died here, although certainly that does not help. But I have seen many aftermaths of many deaths, even murders, and most do not feel quite like this.”</p><p>He moved to the small vanity next to the window, on which there was a small jewelry case, a mirror, and a vase of flowers. Withdrawing a pencil from his breast pocket, he opened the unlatched lid of the jewelry case.</p><p>I leaned forward to get a better look. “Are those-”</p><p>“Real diamonds, <em>mon ami</em>, yes, I think so.” He used the pencil to shift the glittering bib necklace, revealing more of the box’s contents. “And if I am not mistaken, Mrs. Edison’s wedding ring as well.”</p><p>He held up a golden circlet caught on the pencil’s eraser. “She wore this last night, I remember.”</p><p>Suddenly, one of Kinney’s comments from the previous night came back to me. “She was having an affair with her husband’s secretary,” I said. “Conrad, I don’t know his Christian name.”</p><p>Poirot nodded. “So I had heard.”</p><p>“So where is he?” I said. “Not sleeping in here tonight, I suppose.”</p><p>“One of many questions,” Poirot said, and bent to replace the ring in the jewelry box. When he stood up again, he turned to face the window with his hands linked in front of him.</p><p>“It is amazing,” he said, “how people who do not know each other can make precisely the same mistakes, no? Decades now I have studied human nature, and there is so rarely any change.”</p><p>He sighed and walked over to the little table and chairs underneath the room’s other window, where a china mug on a doily and a pillbox sat side-by-side. He picked up the pillbox in his handkerchief and shook it; it rattled.</p><p>“Another thing for the doctor to inform us on,” he said. Then he leaned down and sniffed at the mug- and recoiled.</p><p>He reached out a hand and wafted the air over the mug towards himself. When he stood, his face was drawn and dark.</p><p>“We must fetch Lieutenant Delacroix at once,” he said, to the two policemen by the door. “This cup has the smell of belladonna, deadly nightshade. Mrs. Edison may have been poisoned.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>there will actually be some Brian in this story now that the plot is in motion, I promise.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Chapter 4</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>guess who’s back??? I’ve missed writing for this story, and now that I actually have ideas again, I can do it!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Poirot asked me the next day to accompany him in his interviews of the hotel guests, part of his assistance to the local police. I brought along my pencils and a pad of paper, as requested, for sketching any recollected suspicious figures.</p><p>I was quite enjoying my role as the detective sidekick, if I am to be honest. Poirot was pleasant company and clearly highly competent at his job (a compliment that I’m sure he’d have considered an insult of severe magnitude). And it was exciting, too, in a morbid way; the first interesting work I’d had in months.</p><p>We spoke first to Mrs. Edison’s maid - or, more accurately, we sat there while the poor girl trembled, unable to speak without bursting into tears. </p><p>“Mademoiselle,” Poirot said, kindly, “if you would prefer to return later-”</p><p>She shook her head quickly, wiping her eyes. “It’s all right,” she said. Her accent was heavy, Northern. Liverpool. “I- it’s all so <em>horrible</em>.”</p><p>Poirot nodded gravely. “You have been through a great trauma, I understand. If you could just tell us what you heard, and saw-”</p><p>“I heard her fall,” she said. “To the floor. And I ran in, I wasn’t sure what had happened, and she was- twitching- her eyes were open- I didn’t know what to do-”</p><p>She put her hand to her mouth, crying. Poirot offered her his handkerchief and she took it, dabbing at her eyes and sniffling. “I called for help, but she was d-dead before anyone heard me.”</p><p>“Do you know who made the mug of tea she was drinking from?”</p><p>“She had the hotel send up a carafe each evening.”</p><p>“And,” Poirot said, “was there anything strange you noticed, before you heard her fall?”</p><p>She shook her head. “She always gave me the evening to myself. That was when she-”</p><p>She broke off, a little pink-faced.</p><p>“When she spent time with Monsieur Conrad?” Poirot supplied.</p><p>She nodded, not looking at either of us.</p><p>“And did Monsieur Conrad visit that night?”</p><p>“I don’t know,” she said. “I would think so. He stays with her almost every night now.”</p><p>Poirot nodded again, looking serious. “I know this is difficult,” he said, “but can you think of anyone who may have wanted to hurt Mrs. Edison? Who may have poisoned her drink?”</p><p>The girl looked at him, and then at me, and then back to him. “It’s- it’s not really my place to say-”</p><p>She wiped at her eyes again. Poirot said, “Please, mademoiselle. Anything you can tell us would be helpful in finding out who did this to Madame Edison.”</p><p>She looked down at her hands. “Her- her husband,” she said, “Mr. Edison? I heard him shouting at her the other night, two or three days ago. He was angry because- because of the affair with Mr. Conrad. And he shouted, ‘I could kill you.’”</p><p>Poirot leaned forward. “You are sure, it was those words precisely?”</p><p>“Yes,” she said. “I was in my room, and they were in hers, and the connecting door was open. It was clear as anything.”</p><p>Poirot nodded and wrote something down in a little notebook. “Thank you,” he said. “You have been most helpful.”</p><p>She smiled in a watery sort of way across the table. “She was a good lady,” she said. “No matter what people say.”</p><p>She stood and left, folding Poirot’s handkerchief neatly and placing it on the corner of the table as she went.</p><p>Next was George Edison. He entered the room like a trapped animal being led between cages, looking around him with wide red-rimmed eyes.</p><p>“I know you think I did this,” he said once he’d sat down. “Who wouldn’t? Cuckolded husband murders wife. A tale as old as time.” His voice was bitter and cold.</p><p>“We only want to find the truth,” Poirot said.</p><p>Edison snorted, shifting in his chair. “Well,” he said, “as I’m sure anyone you ask will tell you, the truth is that last night Celeste and I had a fight. A very loud, public fight.” He glanced at me. I wondered whether or not he remembered me seeing them.</p><p>“I went up to bed afterwards,” he said. “I didn’t much feel like staying at the party. I woke up when I heard the shouting in the hallway, and I’ve been thrown from policeman to policeman since then. So, as I’m sure you’re thinking, I have no alibi.”</p><p>Poirot said nothing.</p><p>“You should know this,” Edison said. He had both hands clenched on the edge of the table. “I loved my wife. People will tell you I stayed with her for the money, and I won’t lie and say that wasn’t a part of it. But I loved her. I did. And that is also why I stayed.”</p><p>“You stayed with her even as you knew she was having an affair with your secretary?” Poirot’s tone was light, casual. </p><p>Edison smiled faintly. “I was angry when I found out, of course I was. But at least I knew who it was Celeste was sleeping with.”</p><p>“And you kept Monsieur Conrad on even after you found out?”</p><p>Edison shrugged. “A good secretary is hard to find, and Edward is the best. It only bothered me when they- showed themselves off- in public, anyway. Otherwise I could look the other way, pretend not to know.”</p><p>Poirot studied his notebook for a long time after Edison left. “Do you think he could be telling the truth?” I said. “He seems awfully calm about it all.”</p><p>“I do not know,” Poirot said. He paused. “He is a strange man, and perhaps a weak one, to remain in such a one-sided marriage, but a murderer? I do not know.” </p><p>After Edison came a long string of people with near-identical levels of unhelpfulness: John the banker, who had called the police but seen nothing prior to the maid’s scream, the irritable pianist with the anti-Bach tirades, the director, Mrs. Cartwright, Daphne, who was much more solemn than she’d been at breakfast this morning, when she’d eagerly speculated about who the killer could be, and a series of shaken-looking hotel staff members. None remembered anything out of the ordinary from the previous evening, save the argument I’d witnessed and several more that apparently preceded it.</p><p>“Where’s the secretary?” I said, when the night watchman had left.</p><p>Poirot glanced over at me, away from his notebook. “The police informed me this morning that he received an urgent call yesterday evening shortly after the public argument between the Edisons. He told Monsieur Edison that he had to return to London at once, and has not been seen since.”</p><p>I stared at him. “Do you think-”</p><p>“I do not think anything as of now,” Poirot said, genially but firmly. “I have wired a friend of mine in London, and he will be coordinating with Scotland Yard to find Monsieur Conrad.”</p><p>It was obvious that he did not want to speak further on the topic, so I didn’t press the issue.</p><p>The door opened again and a policeman poked his head into the room. “Another guest is here,” he said.</p><p>“Thank you,” Poirot said. “Please send him in.”</p><p>I set my paper ready to sketch if needed as the new guest entered the room, so it was not until he sat down that I realized who he was. Kinney was wearing a dark vest and a white shirt, no jacket or tie, and he looked directly at me, eyes glinting with amusement when I jumped as I realized it was him.</p><p>Poirot glanced between us. Kinney turned his gaze to him, smiling blandly - a false smile, not reaching his eyes. His mouth was slightly wet and very red. Very, very red.</p><p>Lord.</p><p>“How can I help you gentlemen?” he said, propping his elbows on the table and giving me another intense glance. I focused on keeping my expression unreadable.</p><p>Poirot said, “Could you tell us of your movements last night, after ten in the evening?”</p><p>“I stayed in the downstairs until past eleven,” Kinney said, “and went for a walk along the road outside the hotel after that. At midnight I returned to my room, where I worked on a client presentation for about thirty minutes. Then a concierge came to the room to assist me with a problem with the fireplace there. He’ll be able to confirm I was in my room for the rest of the night, until Mrs. Edison’s body was found.”</p><p>Poirot nodded, making a few notes. “And the concierge left, when?”</p><p>Kinney looked up at the ceiling, thinking. His dark shiny hair fell back a little. It looked silky, soft. I shook myself. “Not long before the call for help woke us all up.”</p><p>I couldn’t stop myself. “It took him three hours to fix an issue with the fireplace?”</p><p>Poirot and Kinney both turned to look at me. Kinney smiled with all of his teeth. “It was a complex issue,” he said. “Soot backup. The grate wouldn’t open. Required a lot of ... technical ability.”</p><p>“Ah,” Poirot said, smiling pleasantly. “These hotel heating systems can be difficult, no?”</p><p>“Indeed,” Kinney said. He shot me another amused glance.</p><p>The policeman opened the door again. “Call for you, Mr. Poirot,” he said. “Inspector James Japp, Scotland Yard?”</p><p>Poirot stood and took his cane from where it was leaning against the table. “My sincerest apologies,” he said, “but I must answer. I should not be long.”</p><p>“Not a problem,” Kinney said, smiling that wide inauthentic smile again.</p><p>The door shut, and we were alone. I busied myself with my pencils.</p><p>“You didn’t mention you were a detective,” Kinney said, propping his feet up on the table. Long, long legs, and a broad torso shifting under his elegant clothes. God help me.</p><p>“I’m just here to sketch,” I said. “In case anyone remembers a stranger’s face, or something like that.”</p><p>“Ah,” he said, nodding slowly. He was looking directly at me again, studying me. A challenge, I thought, and the proper thing - the intelligent thing - to do would have been to shut him down right there, to say I wasn’t interested, that he should take his pursuits elsewhere. But God, <em>God</em>, it had been too long, far too long, and I’d missed this, the thrill of this frightening electricity.</p><p>The air seemed to be crackling between us. I held his gaze. Slowly, very slowly, he smiled, sharp incisors coming into view. He leaned over the table again. “Room two-forty-one,” he said. “Knock three times fast.”</p><p>Before I could respond, the door opened yet again and Poirot came back into the room. My face felt hot. I realized I was breathing hard. When I dared look at him again, Kinney was twirling a hotel pen in one hand with a bored expression on his face.</p><p>“Just a few more questions,” Poirot said.</p><p>After Kinney left, Poirot didn’t take any more notes. He sat in thoughtful silence for a moment, then looked at me. “He is a very charismatic character, that one,” he said.</p><p>I nodded, unsure of what to say.</p><p>“I will give you just one piece of advice,” Poirot said, standing and picking up his cane again. “Until we find the truth, everybody is a suspect.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>blink-and-you’ll-miss-it Hastings reference here - I want to bring him and Japp in at some point, if only for the fabulously inept commentary and stiff social graces, respectively.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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